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Daniel B. Klein “The Improprieties of the Pretense of Knowledge”

Adam Smith denounced the folly and presumption of interventionists,
and Friedrich Hayek denounced their pretense of knowledge. Daniel
B. Klein’s new book attempts to renew Smith and Hayek and go
beyond. His talk will focus on the hubris of interventionism,
arguing that such arrogance hangs on maneuvers in government and
“expert” quarters that pretend to make things simpler than they
are. In particular, he will explain how economists flatten
knowledge down to information and thereby shortchange the case for
liberty. A candid understanding of knowledge makes us more virtuous
and more libertarian.

Additional information provided by the author: “Knowledge has its
counterpart in action, and your actions emerge from your normative
calls in personal policy-making. On those two steps Klein proposes
to bring to the traditional Hayekian knowledge problem a prism of
Smithian moral analysis. This approach perhaps sheds new light on
the absurdities and profound quackishness of statist pretenses of
knowledge.”